Bharat Sikka: Elephant in the Room

Elephant in the Room presents a world suspended between two realities. Indian-American photographer Bharat Sikka (b. 1973) engages in a critical and experimental dialogue with AI, situating his photographic practice within the evolving terrain of machine perception and interpretation. Rooted in the complexity of today’s India, the project draws from a personal archive spanning over three decades of engagement with its layered identities, contradictions, and transformations. AI becomes both mirror and mediator, an external consciousness that intelligently reflects and uncannily distorts Sikka’s world – a fragmented yet immersive portrait of India, where technology absorbs, misreads, and reconstitutes cultural memory.